For Politicos, Illness Becomes Public Issue

February 22, 1986|By Ken Cummins, Washington Bureau

WASHINGTON — Sen. Paula Hawkins` reluctance to discuss her medical problems has helped transform her health into a major issue confronting her re-election campaign, warns Paul Tsongas, who quit the Senate after being diagnosed as having cancer.

The former Massachusetts senator said he also failed to ``go public`` with details of his ill health two years ago and now regrets it. He says he was wrong in thinking his disease would not impair his ability to serve another six years in the Senate.

``As much as one would like to view it as a private matter, the fact is it (a candidate`s ill health) will come out`` during a campaign, Tsongas said from his Lowell, Mass., home this week. He had just returned from Florida and was familiar with the controversy now swirling around Hawkins.

Had she asked his advice, the former one-term Democratic senator said, he would have told Hawkins to disclose her health problems immediately.

``I just think people can be very understanding,`` he said. ``They were in my case.``

``You also avoid the secondary problem of people wondering whether you are trying to cover up,`` Tsongas said.

But Hawkins, R-Fla., continues to dodge questions about her health, insisting that she is entitled to privacy regarding her personal medical problems.

The two-week-old controversy over the freshman senator`s health, which erupted as a result of the secrecy surrounding her recent hospitalization at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, N. C., has pitted a public official`s right to medical privacy against the public`s right to know whether its elected representatives can continue to serve.

At the center of the furor is whether Hawkins, 59, and her aides have attempted -- and still are attempting -- to deceive the public through false and misleading statements about the reasons for her sudden departure from Washington 17 days ago.

Florida voters may have to grapple with questions about the state of their senators` health for at least the next two elections. Both Florida senators have been hospitalized within the past three months.

Sen. Lawton Chiles, D-Fla., underwent emergency heart surgery on Dec. 2, and Republicans already are planning to make his health an issue if Chiles runs for re-election in 1988. Hawkins` terse and often flippant public statements about her medical problems may keep the issue of her health at the forefront of her re-election campaign for weeks to come.

Hawkins appeared on the CBS Morning News television program Friday and was asked by co-anchor Forrest Sawyer whether she would need spinal surgery to relieve chronic neck and lower back pains resulting from an injury in a TV studio four years ago.

Later in the interview, Hawkins said ``being in pain is part of living,`` and compared her capability to endure pain to that of former presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy.

``Franklin Roosevelt and John Kennedy did very well,`` she said. ``I don`t think that it`s unusual for a woman that works this hard to be in pain.``

Hawkins` reluctance to reveal information about her health contrasts sharply with the way Chiles and his aides handled release of information about his medical emergency late last year. Chiles` office disclosed the decision to operate within hours after it was made, and aides provided daily reports on his condition and treatment during his six days in the hospital.

Hawkins` spokesman, Henry Hicks, said there is no comparison between the two medical problems.

``That was an emergency situation,`` Hicks said. ``This is a private health matter.``

Tsongas, 44, said he reacted in much the same way as Hawkins has when he first learned he had lymphoma in October of 1983. At the time, he was beginnning his re-election campaign for a second term and, on the advice of his doctor, decided to withhold the diagnosis from the public after his illness was determined not to be life-threatening.

Tsongas eventually dropped out of the race in early 1984, not because of the cancer but because of a desire to spend more time with his wife and three children. Had he been faced with a tougher re-election campaign, however, Tsongas said he might not have stepped down, at least not until after the election.

``It would have been harder to step down. People would say you stepped down because you could not win,`` he said. ``We were comfortable that no one was going to say that.``

But he said it would have been much more difficult to conceal his illness during a tough re-election fight.

``I don`t think your right to privacy changes, but I think the public`s demand for information is greater and there`s going to be conflict,`` he said.